In Defense Of: Post-”Green” R.E.M.

Most R.E.M. fans that I knew in college loathed what the band became after 1989′s “Green” album. Of those fans, about half were reluctant to even include that album in the band’s canon.They are die-hard disciples of Document.  Don’t try to tell them anything else R.E.M. counts.

So I am swimming upstream on this one. While I appreciate the band’s early efforts, their work post-Green speaks to me. My two favorite albums by the band are “Out of Time” and “Automatic for the People”.  I find both albums filled with well-written diverse tracks from the first to the last.

Die-hard Document disciples especially loathe these “overly commercial efforts”. They wanted the band to produce “Document” over and over again?  What would be the purpose or point in that? The band, like all artists and a lot of people evolved over time. I love where they went in this period. I think it has to do with what I was going through at the time. I was evolving as well.

I am an identical twin. For the first 18 years of my life I was never apart from my twin brother Jon for more than 24 hours. We played soccer on the same teams, shared a room and went to the same schools. We shared just about everything except for girls, toothbrushes and underwear.

“Automatic for the People” had came out earlier in the year. The album is largely known for the angst anthem “Everybody Hurts” and Andy Kaufman torch song, “Man on the Moon”. They are good songs, through nowhere near my favorites on the album.

August 1992 my life changed in a profound way. I went to SUNY Fredonia. Jon went to Canisius College in Buffalo. We were an hour car ride apart.  It may as well have been a day apart.  From what I recall we rarely spoke that first month apart. It was a violent, scary detox.